City College strives to create a culture where outcomes assessment continually improves the quality of student learning and institutional effectiveness. Members of each department and program engage each other in the development and assessment of outcomes. Dialogue within and amongst departments and programs moves the college forward to meet the evolving needs of our students through instruction, curricula, programs, and services.

All units at CCSF (including committees) have outcomes, assess them, and analyze them to inform program improvements.

Outcomes are developed and assessments take place for the following areas:

Last call for Communication ILO Data! If you have recent program level SLO/SSO/AUO data (collected in fall or the previous spring )that maps to the Communication ILO, please record your results by March 1st. Visit the MyCCSF link on the CCSF homepage and look for the Assessment Reporting Form. You will need your CCSF Google mail password one last time.

The faculty Professional Development Committee and the District Professional Committee have created a joint needs assessment survey. Please take the survey so that professional development plans around assessment are better informed:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/facultyPL

Check out the latest SLO HIGHLIGHTS! This installment features the program improvement process for the support communities in Find Your Community. Not familiar with Find Your Community?

To address timely completion, in 2014, Bridge to Success funded leaders at City College (Associate Dean of Matriculation, Associate Dean of Outreach, Student Learning Outcomes Coordinator, and a Counseling Lead) to attend a project-based leadership academy. Interested in finding low-cost avenues to accelerate transfer and completion, a diverse, coordinated and intentional network of student support options were packaged under one easy to understand and marketable umbrella. “Find Your Community” was inspired by Nudge Theory, a belief that the architecture of choice has powerful and predictable results. To count as a mere nudge, the intervention must be an easy and accessible choice, not a mandate. Find Your Community embedded the selection of a support pathway in the counseling process, rather than an informal resource fair, in order to give counselors the opportunity to nudge students toward a support system more effectively. CCSF Counselors assigned to local high schools disseminated information at the high school sites, during FRISCO Day and during Saturday All-in-One matriculation days.

Learn how Bridge to Bioscience, YO!, Puente, Accelerated Math Gateway, and Project SURVIVE are connecting with students. If you missed the summary of the Metro Academy, visit the September issue. Look for an inspiring summary of the improvement practices in the MultiCultural Rentention Programs in our next issue.

Feb 18, 2015

Happy Lunar New Year!

As we start a new year, it is always time to begin anew. With that in mind, we are looking for new, energetic leadership to join a well-supported SLO Coordination team that will lead strong authentic assessment at all CCSF locations. The college will soon post positions for the following:

Primary SLO coordinator -- .8 reassign time for providing leadership and guidance to faculty and staff for the development, assessment, and review of Student Learning Outcomes at the department, school and college level and will coordinate with team instructional credit assessment as well as GE and ILO and AUO assessments for the college.

Non-credit SLO coordinator -- . 6 reassign time for providing leadership and guidance to faculty and staff for the development, assessment, and review of non-credit Student Learning Outcomes at the department, school and college level.

CTE SLO coordinator -- .6 reassign time for providing leadership and guidance to CTE faculty and staff for the development, assessment, and review of Student Learning Outcomes and develop prior learning assessments at the department, school and college level.

Student Service SLO coordinator -- . 6 reassign time for providing leadership and guidance to faculty and staff in the Student Service Division for the development, assessment, and review of Student Service Outcomes for each unit.

CurricUNet support coordinator -- .8 reassign time for managing continued implementation of, maintenance of, and training on CurricUNET software for all CCSF employees. This individual will also work closely with campus leaders to ensure that the software continues to meet our accreditation-related needs in as streamlined and easy a process as possible.

It’s not too early to start thinking about applying for one of these positions. If you are interested I’d love to talk about the duties and responsibilities of each position. Don’t think you are not qualified! The most desirable quality for any of these positions is the strong want to participate on a leadership team that will have an enormous impact on the Restoration process.

SLO Help Lab for Tuesday February 24th will be held from 4-5 PM so that I can attend The Rise of Black Achievement: Student Equity in Higher Education from 2-4 pm in Rosenberg 304. I encourage all to attend and participate in this important discussion.

Kristina Whalen

SLO Coordinator

Feb 10, 2015

4 things every faculty member should know about assessment reporting this semester

1. Every faculty member should assess at least ONE SLO in each section they instruct for the next 3 semesters (Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016).

2. Every faculty member will log onto the new reporting software and input a SLO assessment score for each student next to the student’s name and ID.

3. You will be asked to note how many students “meet the outcome” or are “developing the outcome” or show “no evidence of outcome” or were “not assessed”.

4. Disaggregated student data will never appear publicly with student name or ID attached.

Feb 4, 2015

To help us reach the standards of gathering disaggregated SLO assessment data, reviewing it in aggregated form in program review, having it inform future course and program-level improvements and ensuring all faculty are actively involved in this process (and demonstrate it in 2 semesters), we have developed the following process:

Each faculty member will assess and report on at least one SLO for each section she or he teaches each semester. Some courses are assessing more than one SLO in order to meet GELO and ILO needs; if that is your course, yes record those as well. Faculty will gather and record these data with student name and and enter them into a secure, confidential site, similar to our current grade reporting software. (Software is currently under development to capture these data, and we plan for it to be ready by semester end; until that time data can be stored in the same way grades are stored.)

Each student will be assigned one of the following assessment levels: proficient (meets the outcome), developing, no evidence, not assessed. Please work with other instructors teaching the same course to develop definitions for these categories that are appropriate for your discipline.

Because learning assessment is intended to lead to genuine dialog about student learning needs and how to address those needs, please also continue to collaborate with your colleagues on course and program improvements - just like the professionals we have always been. We will be continuing to document this process through assessment evaluation reporting at the course and program level.

What are our goals with this change? To fully meet existing and new accreditation standards that require every faculty member be actively involved in the assessment process and data be disaggregated (entered by student ID) and be analyzed for achievement gaps. The visiting team noted in its report that our current methods are not ensuring cooperation from all faculty at all centers in all units.

What is our plan? Start collecting assessment data on students at the CRN/section level.

Each semester each faculty member will assess and report on student performance for at least one SLO for each section they teach. We will all do so for at least the next three semesters and then reassess the frequency at that time.

If you've already made plans to assess particular SLOs this semester, please keep to those plans as much as possible, especially for those part of our ongoing GE-Level coordinated assessments. We need your data! However, recognize that at the end of the semester, each faculty member has to enter his or her own results. Faculty teaching courses with multiple sections should continue to work with their Course Coordinator to ensure consistency of SLO(s) assessed, assessment methods, and criteria.

Faculty will assign each of their students one of the four assessment levels for each SLO they assess:

· proficient (meets the standard)

· developing (enroute -- evidence exists they have some of it)

· no evidence (student was assessed but demonstrates no evidence of developing this standard)

· not assessed

These levels will be entered into a software program interface that looks similar to the way we currently enter grades (currently under development). In addition to providing the above assessment data, each faculty member will also enter information similar to what we have been doing in our past assessment reporting, but focused on a particular CRN -- those particular students, location, time, and semester:

assessment method

criteria for each assessment level

recent class improvements made as a result of past assessments

summary of any analysis of what the results mean or what might have contributed to them

plans for next assessment

Concerned about workload? This new process distributes the current workload more equitably so that it’s shared by all faculty at the college.

If you have been a course coordinator and aggregating results across multiple section for other faculty members, then your workload should now be less. You no longer have to enter and collate data across multiple sections and faculty. Our new system will do it for you.

End-of-semester reporting forms are being redesigned and will be smarter, with less data entry as SLO and course information are already in the system.

Assessments at the GELO, ILO, Program, and Course level (at least once every 3 years) will be much easier to do as we can pull CRN-level data from multiple semesters and will no longer need to require everyone to assess the same SLOs at the same time.

Recommendation: The easiest way to assess SLOs in our courses is through embedded assessments -- those that we already use (assignments, projects, exams, etc.). Instead of thinking you have to create something new, find something you already do that assesses a particular SLO and record student performance on that.

Course Coordinators and Program Coordinators will continue to assist faculty with development of authentic assessment methods and review. And they will be responsible for continuing to assess programs and courses at the "deep read" level drawing in CRN-level data from many sections and semesters. In Fall 2015, we will be able to run reports that collate Spring 2015’s disaggregated data across a course and across a program (multiple courses). The research office will provide us those data reaggregated and broken down by demographics, so that we can analyze them along with other data we collect, and complete deeper-level review to inform program improvement and resource requests.

How and when will we assess the effectiveness of this plan at meeting our goals?

We plan to continue this process each semester at least until we have made it through restoration. Then we will review to decide what frequency of CRN-level assessment is required as we go forward and whether we have successfully engaged all faculty.

In the meantime, we will continue each semester to thoroughly review what's happening at other colleges and methods used by them to achieve our same goals (understanding we are naturally challenged by the large size and distribution of our college -- especially reaching those working offsite centers). Each semester, we also assess the results from the previous semester and use those to improve the process and make things easier and smoother for all faculty for the next semester. We will review completed reports and develop targeted strategies for reaching those who are not contributing.

We can do this!

Kristina Whalen

SLO Coordinator

Drop-In Help lab each Tuesday from 2-3Pm in C 208A

January 20, 2015

Welcome Back!

Please carefully read this message for some important information about assessment timelines for the semester.

Institutional level assessments

After the General Education Forum on Communication and Humanities (GE Area A & E) held December 5th, the GE SLO workgroups in both the areas finalized recommendations in the written report--based on dialogue with participants of the forum and a follow-up survey. The report was sent to the SLO Committee for further refinement. The results of the assessment and recommendations on how to improve and capitalize on strengths are in the report.

For a shorter summary of some of the key recommendations and findings, see the Dec/Jan issue of SLO Highlights

Following our Institutional Assessment Plan, GE Area B (Written Composition), Area D (Social & Behavioral Sciences) , & Area H (Ethnic, Women, and LGBT Studies) will be assessed this spring. This means that a large number of courses should participate in this important demonstration of our on-going assessment of student learning. A complete list of courses in each of the areas is at this bottom of this email. If you teach in these areas, please plan to collect and report data. This will be the last completed GE assessment before we submit another self-study to a Visiting Team.

Finally, the ILO Work group is STILL collecting data from program or unit level assessments that align with the Communication ILO. If last Fall or Spring you completed assessments on program level outcomes that align with “Communicate effectively” or “Demonstrate respectful interpersonal and intercultural communication” or “Recognize and interpret creative expression” we would like your data! You may enter the results in the ILO#2 Assessment Reporting Form found on the Assessment Reporting Form page. We are accepting data through March 1st.

New software—it’s coming!

What’s next? The Institutional Development Team is engaging is cross-institutional dialogue on how best (and when) to roll out the CurricUNET curriculum and SLO reporting software. While the software is new, our assessment goals and benchmarks have not changed: Every outcome should be assessed at least once every three years. The new software will only change some aspects of the reporting process, but will not dramatically change how we assess. These changes include:

Each instructor will input the assessment results from individual classes. The software will aggregate the results from multiple sections for the course coordinator to analyze.

As always, we will ask how many students are assessed BUT you must determine how many were proficient, developing, or showed no evidence of meeting the outcome. You should input the number of students in each category into the system by consulting with the other instructors teaching the course and translating your assessment instrument into these categories.

CurricUNET will use a single sign-on system so the password you use to log into your computer is the same password used to gain access to the assessment reporting form.

Finally, to meet new accreditation standards, a system will be put in place and widely discussed about how to record and store assessment data by student ID number so that student assessment data may be disaggregated when anlayzed.

Finally, I’d like to conclude by congratulating the faculty, staff and administrators for their hard work on assessment---work that was acknowledged by the Visiting Team members in the report just released. They wrote, “the institution has established a culture of evidence in which outcomes have been identified for courses, certificates, programs, general education and the institution. The instructional programs have been systematically assessed in order to assure currency, improve teaching and learning strategies, and achieve stated student learning outcomes.” Quality, student-centered decisions have always guided CCSF but I commend each of you on the tremendous efforts made to showcase your work through our assessment systems. And, your participation in our college-wide discussions on student learning has deepened our connections—both to each other and our students.

Next SLO Committee meeting is Friday, Jan 23rd, from 12-1:30 in Cloud 257. All welcome!

Please read updates on Get It Done day, correctly staging courses/programs/units in assessment reports, and the next APT meeting on Institutional Set Standards.

Get It Done Day

Get It Done Day is this Friday from 11-5 in Batmale 313. Get It Done Day is a supportive, peer fueled day to complete assessment progress reports. Knowledgeable SLO faculty and staff are on hand to assist you with the report (or assessment in general). Assessment Reports are due for every course, program, student service and administrative unit by Jan 5th—but Get It Done this Friday! The link to the Assessment Reporting Form is on the MyCCSF page or at www.ccsf.edu/slo (form link in upper right hand column).

Correct Staging

When filling out your assessment reports, take care to correctly and accurately stage your course/program/unit. Once a course reaches a stage it never goes backwards! Assessment stages are like colored belts in karate. Your course, program, or service advances from one stage to the next higher stage, until reaching the highest level. Once a black belt, the highest stage, there’s no going backwards. You’re at that level from then on.

At CCSF our stages move up in number. Stage 1, the lowest, is where you could imagine a new course, program, or service starts – with defined outcomes. Stage 2 is reached when you are conducting the first assessment of the students or served constituents.Stage 3 is reached when the data from the first assessment are being analyzed and discussed with decisions being made about future steps. Stage 4 is reached when changes are implemented. If no changes are deemed to be required, then stage 4 is skipped.Stage 5 is when the course, program, or service is reassessed. If there were no changes made, the assessment is just a way to ensure the outcomes are still being achieved. If changes were made, the assessment checks whether or not the changes are making a positive difference. Once stage 5 is reached, the loop is closed, so to speak.

Why do we have these assessment stage designations at all? The accurate reporting of assessment stages are absolutely necessary for the SLO Coordinators to be able to quantify our progress to our accrediting organization. We were supposed to be at stage 2 or higher for all courses, programs, and services by Fall 2012. To achieve completely the SLO standards, we need to be at 5. So keep moving forward, and report accurately!

APT meeting on Institutional Set Standards

Discussion about our Institutional Set Standards for Achievement will take place next week. Members of the Assessment Planning Team are meeting to analyze last year’s data in comparison to our Institutional Set Standards. Anyone is welcome to attend and contribute. Institutional standards are set for course completion, degree completion, certificate completion and transfer. See ours in the CCSF Institutional Assessment Plan.

Assessment Planning Team meeting, Tuesday December 16th from 11-12:30 on R 518.

Thank you for all your hard work,

Kristina Whalen

SLO Coordinator

December 3, 2014

SLO coordinators and other higher education leaders across the State (and beyond) have been closely watching the implementation and interpretation of the new ACCJC Accreditation Standards, particularly the standard’s new prescription that BOTH assessment and achievement data are disaggregated to identify potential equity gaps. CCSF is no exception. We have been monitoring and participating in these discussions. In today’s SLO Update, I’d like to share information about the standards and steps being taken by our campus leaders to ensure our compliance with assessment standards.

First, the new ACCJC standards require that the “institution disaggregates and analyzes learning outcomes and achievement for subpopulations of students” (I.B.6). For years, the institution has disaggregated achievement data (what student puts in their pocket degree/certificate completion, etc.) but disaggregation of learning outcomes--acquired knowledge, skills, values--has only occurred in isolated pockets. CCSF is not alone. Reports from our Academic Senate President after attending the recent ASCCC (Academic Senate for California Community Colleges) Plenary details how institutions are grappling (some stunned) with the implications of standard I.B.6*.

How is the Standard being interpreted? As reported by the Senate president Lillian Marrujo-Duck, it is expected that outcome assessment data will need to be tied, in some way, to confidential student information. Schools that are already analyzing learning outcome data in this manner are entering SLO measurements much like they would a grade sheet. One of the first schools to pilot an ACCJC site visit with the new standards, Napa Valley College, conferred with interested Community Colleges via a Webinar on November 18th. They confirmed that the Commission does expect assessment data to be broken down by sub populations. It was also acknowledged that this requirement marks a cultural shift in assessment and one they could not currently meet. We will be watching the ACCJC response to NVP carefully.

How is CCSF responding? A myriad of options are being considered, all with an eye toward maximum sustainability and minimal additional workload. Foremost, our SLO Technical Coordinator, Katryn Wiese, as well as institutional leaders in the Office of Research & Planning, the Office of Instruction, and our Chief Technology Officer are working closely with our contracted vendor to develop the new CurricUNET Meta software with the capabilities to conduct this required analysis. That implementation is currently in progress, but moving slowly due to constraints of the vendor -- Governet. The one benefit to that slowness is that it gives us time to adapt to these new changes and ensure we implement something meeting current and evolving SLO assessment standards. Governet is committed to meeting these standards as well, as they have many many contracts among California community colleges.

We are also exploring other options to meet the disaggregated student issue, including alternative software, a Banner Bolt-On (to use an interface similar to what we currently use for entering student grades), and Moodle-based solutions. It is too soon to pick a solution, but all are being carefully vetted.

So what does all this mean for you now? What can you do? It is our plan to implement these new disaggregated SLO standards thoughtfully and considerately, in small groups and then expanding to the entire college. Here are steps you could take now:

1. If you aren't already, start changing the way you collect your SLO data so that it includes student ID. That means that anyone using anonymized assignments will need to change those so that student ID is captured. Ideally these assignments are a regular part of the class, but carefully connected to SLOs.

2. Collate and record your data by student and maintain those records in your own storage system (and be sure to protect them as you would grades -- these should NOT be publicly available).

3. Aggregate your data as you have been doing to date and enter that aggregated information into the online SLO progress reporting (which is public).

If you feel frustrated that processes and expectations are in flux, your reaction is certainly justified. However, standard I.B.6 reflects one of the core value of our institution--social justice. Analyzing learning outcomes data by student subpopulation can make assessment more meaningful and provide additional rich college-wide discussions of student learning in all areas of the college (noncredit and credit). While we have been largely focused on how many students are proficient at our outcomes, we haven’t looked all that extensively at which subpopulations of students are obtaining specific outcomes. Conducting this analysis will help us identify where gaps in knowledge and skills may exist for a certain subpopulation (even though they might still pass the class). Subpopulations can be broken up by a number of demographics, including age, gender, ethnic background, and experience. We can track students through basic skills and better connect their performance later in general education classes. Discussions we can have around these data include where our curriculum might need more cultural competency, best teaching practices shown to be effective for reaching certain subpopulations, and how best to tailor student support. Remember, achievement indicators like the Statewide Student Success Scorecard only provide data for a little over half of our student population. At CCSF we care about every student!

In all, this new standard, while logistically puzzling, will help us realize our vision as an inclusive, diverse, teaching and learning community.

( *It should be noted that faculty across California successfully provided input on the new Standards. In fact, Phillip Smith, of Los Rios and ASCCC officer at the time, organized faculty feedback and reported last May that the ACCJC included 38% of ASCCC suggestions outright and accepted another 21% partially. All in all, ACCJC accepted 59% of the ASCCC suggestions to some degree. For standard I.B.6 faculty leaders proposed a change to the format of the standard but not the content. )